A tool for carrying out this work is disclosed in FR-A-2 121 431, said tool comprising a body in which is provided a journaling passage for receiving the end of the cable to be stripped, said body including at least a cutter protruding over a settable distance inside the passage and formed with two cutting edges, one substantially radial and the other at the inner end of the first cutting edge which is parallel to the passage axis. By rotating the tool about the cable, one cuts out, in the main insulating layer, a helical chip the thickness of which is set by the length of protrusion of the cutter inside the journaling passage.
It is obvious that in such a tool, the precision of the radial thickness of the cut-out insulation depends on the accuracy with which is set the length of protrusion of the cutter and the play eventually existing between the cable and the walls forming the journaling passage.
Yet, the cables have, according to the number and section of the unit conductors, very different diameters which vary practically from 15 to 65 mm.
In FR-A-2 121 431, this adaptation of the journaling passage to the cable diameter is obtained by forming the body defining this passage with two adjacent blocks mobile with respect to one another, the passage being formed by two grooves, preferably of V-shaped section, provided in the opposite surfaces of said blocks, one of said blocks being provided with at least two guiding rods on which slide the other block through corresponding holes, the two blocks being subjected to the action of resilient means biasing them apart while a setting nut screwed onto one of the rods, which is threaded, brings two blocks near each other against said spacing biasing force of the resilient means.
This embodiment of the body and notably of the journaling passage is such that the adaptation capacity of the tool to the various diameters of the cable is extremely reduced. Indeed, for centering the cable having its main insulation presenting some plasticity, it is necessary that the generating lines along which is carried out the guiding, viz. those which are bearing on the surfaces of the V-shaped grooves of the guiding body blocks, present a sufficient angular spacing. Moreover, it is obvious that if the blocks carrying the two V-shaped grooves can be sufficiently brought near to each other in order to adapt themselves around the cable of minimum diameter, when the cable has a maximum diameter the bodies will be in contact with the cable surface via the edges of the groove sides, thereby preventing the journaling. The making of a tool of this type, adaptable to the full range of cable diameters, seemed geometrically impossible due moreover to the necessity of fixing at the same time on the blocks the main cutter and either the cutter with a cutting edge in the opposite direction which is sometimes provided on the tool for cutting off by a reverse rotation the chip under which it is engaged during the normal rotation in order to lift it, or the abutment blade substituted thereto, and to set the length of protrusion of the cutters or abutment blade in the passage. In practice, it was therefore necessary to have at least two tools of this type for covering the whole range of usual diameters.